We see how the young Bhagat Singh became a revolutionary as we journey along with him on his short-but-action-packed life.
Here was a precocious young boy, buffeted by the forces that shaped events around
him.

CAN
we ever say Bhagat Singh without the prefix Shaheed? No, just Bhagat
Singh sounds incomplete, yet there was much more to the man than his
martyrdom. He was a well-read, thinking individual of convictions that
led him to take a path of great hardship and sacrifice.

He was young, just 23
years, when he died, but he has continued to live in popular lore,
history and in the imagination of the people he died for till now. As a
matter of fact, recently Bhagat Singh has been the focus of many books,
but most of them have been historical ones, serious studies with
extensive documentation. The writer has taken a challenge of penning a
biography of a person who is much revered, and on whom much has been
written.The Prologue, which deals with Bhagat Singh’s execution, sets
the tone for the book. The widely-known events are recounted with a
sensitivity and fluidity by the author, a veteran of many a book of
short stories and biographies.

We see the young Bhagat
Singh, on his way to school, his attachment to his grandfather, his
college life, his refusal to marry, and how he became a revolutionary as
we journey, along with him, on his short-but-action-packed life. Here
was a precocious young boy, buffeted by the forces that shaped events
around him, like the Jallianwala Bagh incident when Brigadier-General
Reginald Dyer ordered his soldiers to open fire on an unarmed gathering
of men, women and children. Or the Nankana Sahib incident when on
February 20, 1921, at the birthplace of Guru Nanak, the custodian,
Narain Das and his men fired on Akali protesters killing their leader,
Bhai Lachhman Singh, and many others. The Jaito Morcha of 1923, which
was an Akali agitation for the restoration of Maharaja Ripudaman Singh
of the Sikh princely state of Nabha, to his throne was an incident that
affected the psyche of the people of Punjab, and certainly the sensitive
soul of Bhagat Singh.

The Ghadar Movement in
which Indians, who lived in the US and in Canada sought to liberate
India from British colonial rule by whatever means necessary, also had a
major ideological impact on Bhagat Singh.

Having made conscious
choices about what he had to do with his life, Bhagat Singh dedicated it
to the cause of securing freedom for India. He did not follow the
constitutional approach of Balkrishana Gokhale and his supporters, nor
did Mahatma Gandhi’s Non-Cooperation Movement hold his interest for
long. For Bhagat Singh, his path lay in following the revolutionary
course, even if it meant taking a route of violence in facing the might
of the British Raj.

Bhagat Singh wrote a fair
deal and through his articles and diaries, we get glimpses of the mind
of the man. His essay, Punjab’s Language and Script, was
awarded a prize. His article Why I am an Atheist articulates his
position regarding God, and The Last Petition is an impassioned
plea of a revolutionary who wants to serve his cause even as he is ready
to die for it.

Shaheed Bhagat Singh
is a book in which the author brings alive the story of a man who
remains an inspiration more than a century after this death. It is an
easy read for a generation that readily responds to the name of the
martyr, but needs to know much more about the man who readily sacrificed
his life for securing the freedom of the nation we live in.